


When he was in the sky

by celestialskiff



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-17
Updated: 2011-12-17
Packaged: 2017-10-27 11:01:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/295105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celestialskiff/pseuds/celestialskiff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Killua would come back to him eventually. If you left the home and went wandering as often as Killua did, there had to be many homecomings too. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	When he was in the sky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Encyclopediac](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Encyclopediac/gifts).



> Warning for references to canonical child abuse.

Years later, sitting out above the bay, sitting, almost, in the sky, Gon would remember the tower. He would remember the smell of it in his nose, the smell of damp air, and air gone stale, and the feeling of the wet bricks underneath him. The chill of those bricks. There was no draft, and breathing in, the air tasted heavy, and was tinged with sweat and effluence and worse, but the brick was cold. You were never the right temperature. Sitting still, you were cold, and when you walked or ran you quickly became too hot. There was nowhere to wash. There was nowhere to sleep.

At twelve, Gon did not mind. At twelve, Gon did not suffer. But he did not like the thought of it now, preferring to keep to the outdoors, preferring to sit and see sky and sea all around.

Killua would come back to him eventually. If you left the home and went wandering as often as Killua did, there had to be many homecomings too. Gon knew this, and did not worry. He had never truly feared for Killua's life, and he would not start now, no matter what Killua did. He sat and he fished and he went indoors and breathed clean air, and thought.

He walked slowly now, and he supposed that he could be considered old, but he did not consider himself old. He was a Hunter, and he was Gon, and that was all he was.

Outside leaves were falling, and the year was closing in. Gon lit a candle, and then another, and watched them on the windowsill. He remembered other candles, guttering in the trick tower, hot wax on his fingers. Blink. A long time ago. So many important things happened a long time ago. He remember hurting Killua, forcing the heat of his Nen through Killua's hand and trusting Killua to be hurt. Blink. A long time ago. He remembered the moment when he first slid his arms around Killua's waist and his hand down Killua's pants. You had to do both at once with Killua or you would never get anywhere.

It was because Killua had always thought him in some way an innocent, a boy who could laugh at death but would not be lead by any baser motivations. At twelve, this might have been the case, but at sixteen Gon could be as base as anyone else, and he understood the way Killua looked at him. Understood, finally, the way Killua had been looking at him for a long time.

Killua liked the dry hands on his skin, his warm cock in Gon's hot hands. He liked the feeling of their flesh together, heat of muscle on muscle, their easy symmetry. Later they would explore each other's body for hours, learn each other's limits, but at sixteen sweat and semen were all that was important. The easy push and pull. They knew even then they had a lifetime. They had known it at once.

“If we fought, who would win?” Gon said, at eighteen, lying alert among tree roots, Killua just behind him.

“If we fought, the world would loose. I think it would be the end of it,” Killua said.

Gon smiled. He reached behind, found some part of Killua with one hand, an arm or a neck or a shoulder. Said, “Better not fight, then, eh?”

At the time he thought perhaps Killua was being arrogant, imagining their power to be greater than it was. Later, he realised he was not.

At twenty they lay in the mountain under the snow. Gon remembered it now as he looked at the candles, the strange light all around them, and the strange heat trapped by that heavy cold. He was wearing a seal skin cloak and it stank, and Killua was pressed against his chest, warm and familiar. Any two men would have had to lie as close when trapped like this, but for Gon and Killua it was normal. He breathed in Killua's scent, a smell like burnt hair and blown bulbs, and sighed softly. He knew they were not going to die, but for a moment he allowed himself to imagine that they were, and he thought that it was not a bad way to die, though he would have preferred to go down fighting.

The snow. The year closing in. Gon could turn on the light, but he didn't bother. He stretched out on the sofa, easing stiff joints, and looked at the guttering candle flames. Somewhere out there Killua was stiff too, limping on a leg whose break has never quite healed, but ignoring the ache. Killua was better at ignoring pain than Gon.

Gon learnt that a long time ago, Gon learnt that at thirteen, in the flicker of Killua's eyes. Killua does not grimace in pain. Killua felt pain as everyone does, but it did not mean quite the same to him. Killua grew up in pain, slept in pain, and dreamt in pain, and when he was in pain his face did not show it, but for a second something in his eyes gave it away. Gon didn't think even another Hunter would notice. Only Gon did. Blink. A long time ago, sitting outside a café underneath olive trees, listening to voices speak a language he didn't understand.

Leorio said, “The Nen hurt when it hit me, Killua! You're lucky that aura doesn't hurt you.”

Gon thought about the electricity moving around Killua's body. He thought about how bright it was, and the moment when he realised that it did hurt. That most people would not be able to bare it, no matter how strong their Nen was.

“I feel it,” Killua said, looked slightly distracted. He reached across the table and took one of the little custard tarts that were so popular in this country off the plate by Leorio's elbow. Gon watched the pastry crunch against his teeth.

Leorio pulled himself back, as if the thought of this was repellent to him. “You feel it?”

Kurapika said, mildly, “Sometimes you have to feel pain.”

The conversation changed, but Gon kept watching Killua. Killua remained intent on the pastry.

Later. Gon no longer remembered whether it was later the same day or another year. He remembered the olive trees, their thin, dark leaves, and the shadows of moonlight in the room. He drew Killua to him in the dark, smelling smoke and electricity, and slid his hands up Killua's thighs. They were smooth and strong, the muscles tense against his palms. He felt a sting in his hands and thought it was the crackling of Nen between them, or simply his own excitement. Then it became a sudden shock of pain and he drew his hand away. Killua was covered in static electricity, and was hunched on the singed bedsheets.

“I have to go,” Killua said. “You can't come.”

Gon didn't say anything. He looked at the olive trees. “You'll come back,” he said.

They did not kiss each other, preferring the touch of hands on skin, of skin on skin, needing no more intimacy between them than waking up in the same room year after year, but this time Killua kissed Gon, and Gon's lips were burnt for weeks. And for six months Gon did not know whether the kiss was a goodbye or a promise to return.

But Killua did that, more and more as they got older. He kissed Gon and left him and went wandering. Gon did not know where, and he put his energy into getting the most he could from the days without Killua.

And then there were the homecomings.

Oh, the homecomings.

Two bodies that knew each other so well. That had known each other so well and would know each other so well. Two people who had spend ten years in each other's company, almost unable to be apart, and then had lived separately for months on end. There were words, familiar and soothing and easy, and then there was skin, and the sounds they made. They were able to find each other wherever they were, and they knew how to make each other howl. It was good.

Gon did not ask more than once where Killua went. If he needed to know, he could guess. Killua had spent the beginning of his life chained in a basement learning to take pain, had killed before Gon knew how to gut a fish, and had always thought he was free. Now he needed to wander to remind himself he could. Gon did not have to think about that to know it was true. There were many things he simply knew about Killua without asking.

They were asked to adjudicate the Hunter exam.

“You are among the greatest Hunters of your generation,” they said.

“Are we?” Gon asked.

“Of course we are,” Killua said, sticking his cold foot between Gon's thighs to warm it.

But Gon knew he wasn't really thinking about it. He would have agreed with any compliment, but that did not mean he really believed them. They didn't go to the exam. Instead, Gon thought about wandering the mountains. Gon thought about strength and killing. Gon thought about his Nen and Killua's Nen tumbling through them both.

They were only what they were. They would always only be what they were.

The second candle guttered and went out. Gon lay down on his bed in the dark. He did not switch on the light. His bones ached with the healthy tiredness of hard work, of sailing the boat out across the bay, of the haul of fish, of walking along the cliff path and carrying both boat and fish above his head as if they weighed nothing at all. He lay still, looking at the stars though the open window. You remembered, in the end, not your great deeds, but the moments in between, the stars you saw from the aeroplane, the colours of your lover's hair in the moonlight. Something told him Killua would be back tomorrow. Gon wondered what he would think of the house. (Gon had his own wandering spirit. He liked to move from place to place, taste new air and new seas. Killua always knew his way home.)

Blink. He was getting sleepy now. He remembered being sixteen, lying in bed with Killua in a tangle of limbs and sweat and delight, his cock soft and, for the moment, spent. He remembered sliding his hand along Killua's stomach, over his rib cage, aware both of its rigidity and its tenderness. Kurapika came in. They were travelling with him, and he wanted to know if they wanted to get dinner. He saw them as they saw him, and they knew what he saw: the flush on their skin, their limbs hopelessly tangled, their nakedness not diluted by sheets. They waited, understanding Kurapika, but still uncertain.

“We'll eat later,” Kurapika said.

A long time ago. They sat in the ruins of the temple, tired and watchful, the fire crackling between them. Killua was asleep at Gon's feet, and Kurapika looked around them, starting at and then dismissing every noise. Goats wandered close by, cropping the grass, and there was the remains of a goat carcass by the fire. This place had been so empty of people for so long the goats did not know to be afraid. Gon watched Kurapika's eyes grow heavy with sleep, watched his shoulder sag, watched him through the flames.

“You sleep,” Gon said.

“You should sleep,” Kurapika said, but really tiredness had got the better of him, and he was already looking for the most comfortable place to curl up in between the stones.

Gon watched him settle and then buried his hand in Killua's silky hair, stroking the long strands between his fingers. (He was glad, later, that Killua never lost it, glad that he had lost his instead.)

At thirty they sat in the forest together, sharing the last handful of nuts between them.

“Are we going to die out here?” Killua said, chewing. He looked as exhausted as Gon felt, and Gon had never knew he could get so close to exhaustion before, could get so close to the edge of himself.

But he stretched his shoulders and said, “Of course not,” and that seemed to give them both energy, because they stood up again, scrambling through the great roots. Now Gon could not remember how they had got out of that forest, or what they had been searching for, but he remember the dusty taste of the nuts in his mouth, and the change in the taste of the air when they finally found their way out.

Sitting above the bay, sitting, almost, in the sky, Gon thought about the tower. The wet heat of it, and the taste of its stale air in his mouth. He had known that Killua was a killer as soon as he had seen him, some part of his mind already honed in the skill. A Hunter as good as Gon has some instinctive knowledge. He had known this boy was a killer, and he had known him to be a worthy friend. But there's a difference between knowing and seeing, between the hand of the boy and the hand of the killer, nails sharp and bones exposed.

Blink. A long time ago. Gon's mind wandered, wandered far, and came back to the tower, where he had seen what Killua truly was. His mind returned to the tower because he had seen and because he was glad. Because he saw Killua's nature and knew it to be so like and so unlike his own and he had trusted Killua in that moment, the moment when Killua's hand entered the man's chest and stole away his heart, more than he had ever trusted anyone. And he treasured that knowledge. Love came to Gon easily when he was twelve, and it came to him easily when he was eighty. But his trust would always be reserved for one man, who, Gon knew, wherever he wandered, was always on his way back home.


End file.
